


Imp

by DeusLux



Series: WOW Short Reads [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by Real Events, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Substance Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-25 00:44:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3790297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeusLux/pseuds/DeusLux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard is not taking well to cold turkey. So something pays him a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imp

 He rolled over, the pain in his body waking him again as he did. He was sweating, and for the first time in a while it wasn’t down to his fever. The room was boiling and dark. Leonard felt sick with the heat and wondered why it was so bloody warm!

 He tried to roll to face towards the doorway but stopped short when the pain stopped him. He wanted to kick the door down and pummel everyone to death for locking him in here. He was perfectly fine as he was, he enjoyed drinking. He wanted to drink. It was better, it was easier to deal with than the alternative. He _liked_ drinking.

 He found the sheet underneath him were soaked as were the ones above him. He kicked the sheets off. The room was unnaturally hot and he found himself panting. The fabric peeled off him it was so thoroughly soaked through.

 A sudden irrational thought came through his head though. What if there was a fire? And he was trapped in his room because they had left his worthless ass behind because he’s a drunken fucker. What if they were trapped in their rooms as well? What if he was the first to wake up and… what if they were all dead?

 No. He would have been able to smell the smoke. It wasn’t the first time he had caused a fire whilst cooking drunk. He knew the smell of a burning building. He was fine. They were safe.

 He still felt a prickle of fear in his chest. Panting from the heat, he turned again. Looking up at the ceiling relaxed him. Eased his joint pains. He felt sick. Sick with the heat, sick with the pain. Sick with coming off the drink.

_“We’re doing it for you Leonard!”_

 Sure, cause someone great pain for their own benefit.

_“We don’t want to lose you. You’re our friend. What would Albert think?”_

 Albert is better off without him.

_“You said you don’t want to be your father, so fucking do something about it. Don’t let what those shitpick excuse for parents dictate your life. Do you want them to control you?”_

 No.

 No stop it.

 Please stop.

 Don’t remind him.

 The air was hot as well, stale and heavy. It was hard to suck it in and out of his tired lungs. It was like breathing in molasses. He coughed, chocking on the lack of saliva in his mouth, his dry tongue.

 He felt like someone was watching him. He knew the paranoia that came along with cold turkey well enough, it haunted him regularly. He could feel many eyes watching him constantly. He knew his friends were deliberately hurting him, intending to send him back to his father who will sell him to Redman for a quick piss up in a brewery.

 He didn’t want to deal with it. Not right now, now with this blistering heat or blistering headache. Out of random action, he looked across at where he got the feeling from. It was dark.

 It scared him and he leaned back again.

 A sudden and horrifying thought passed through his mind. It was never dark in that part of the room.

 His room was one of the few with a window and the light from the reservoir edge indicators were bright enough to show quite a bit of light into the room. Normally they stretched through from the window onto the far wall. The pale colour of the wall reflected the light back onto the rest of the room, leaving that corner very bright.

 It was pitch black.

 And Leonard could still see the light coming in.

 Suddenly, he was terrified. Immeasurably filled with the most incomparable sense of fear he had ever felt. And with the kind of surety that makes is guaranteed to be correct because it is born from some instinctual universal key to truth and very real things that Leonard is never drunk or sober enough to understand he knows it’s evil.

 Real evil.

 Not the false crap that humans produce, or any creature to appear on this neutral planet. Real, very real. Made of it even.

 A create that cannot be touched by anything good and real, like the light from the street to protect people from drown. It was made of nothing, darkness and evil. The lack of everything Leonard had ever hoped or wanted to feel in his life.

 Suddenly that fear grips his entire body with a slamming shock that brings every system in his body to a very damning stop, heart included for a beat or two, and he feels very small and afraid. This is it, he knows. This thing will try to take him.

 No.

 Fuck that noise.

 So Leonard, in the kind of logical manner that children have, grabbed the blanket quickly and threw it over his head. It was a childish notion that the blanket could protect him from the monstrosity in his room. But he did it anyway. It didn’t make him feel any safer.

 The fear of being taken by this thing was physically affecting him. The boiling heat was coming from it, he knew that. He knew that he had to hold out until morning. Please may morning come safe and sound. Bring his friends back, bring him safety.

 He breathed in the thick moggy air through the sheets. It was stale under here but he was safer even he didn’t feel like it. That childish notion told him not to move, to hid, to stay safe. It was better in here than out there.

 Alone.

 Vulnerable.

 In danger.

 He couldn’t see, he knew he could find sleep again if he tried because he felt it would make him vulnerable. Yet, he could not escape it. It was right by the door. If he went for the door, it would go for him and he would be dead. It would be over, the end. That’s it. Nice knowing you.

 He felt the tears running down his cheeks, checking his memory for Naomi’s research books. An evil creature? There must have been thousands of them. Millions of them. He had never heard of a creature who just felt evil…

 In the back of his mind though, he remembered Envy talking about something from her childhood mountain home in the East. A creature made of evil. Solely evil. An imp.

 Not a demon or some form of violent monstrosity. An imp. A creature of evil temptation. It wanted him. To give up his life for it to take, to torment it. He didn’t want that. No! Why? Why would it come to him? They only came to people who had done great evil themselves.

 He hadn’t hurt anybody. Why did it come to him?

 “ _You shouldn’t ‘ave been born fucker!”_

_“Why did you exist?! Why did I have become pregnant with you?!”_

No no no! Stop it, don’t think that! Don’t encourage it!

 Drink. Drink more, drown it out. Drown it all out.

_“Do you want them to control you?”_

 No. He didn’t want them to control him. That’s why he ran away. That’s why he went to Morepinpaul to do his degree and why he loved Albert so much and how he met his friends and how he loved his friends because they don’t hurt him or control him or try to sell him like papa did…

 That’s why he drinks.

 That’s why he wants to…

 The morning light was stark and bright compared to the darkness of the night before. It streamed through the window in thin white strips. It was chilly as if rain had come in the night. He didn’t know how he had fallen asleep.

 Slowly, but surely, Leonard dared to look at the far corner. It was the same plain pale plaster wall with a desk shoved against it. He felt oddly empty because of it.

 A sharp rap at the door made his squeak and jump out of his skin.

 Jacob’s tired but clear voice called “Leonard, are you awake? Do you see if you want to manage breakfast?”

 He opened the door and looked at Leonard with a sudden surprise. He didn’t understand why for a second until he wheezed out “Help me. I need help. Please don’t let me fall…”

 He sobbed into his hands. The bed beside him compressed and he felt a hand on his back. He leaned into the owner of the touch and cried openly and loudly.

 He was ready to give up on the drink now.


End file.
